Western-Star.com

Reviews of the tragedy at the Mason Community Center pool last weekend are ongoing. But City Manager Eric Hansen said people did their jobs properly.

"Based on what I've seen and heard up to this point, it's tragic, it happened rapidly," he said. "We had a lot of good people doing their jobs that were desperate to see a positive outcome for this family. They are just heartbroken that this occurred."

Hansen said they have never had a drowning at the pool before, but an elderly man did fall ill and die from either a heart attack or stroke. A Cincinnati newspaper reported there was a near drowning at the pool a couple of years ago, and the report stated the lifeguards weren't watching and no one from the MCC responded to the parents' concerns.

Councilman Todd Wurzbacher, who heads the Community Center Committee, said the city was combing its records to try and find such an incident, but hadn't found anything as of Wednesday afternoon. If they turn up empty handed, he said they will contact the family.

"If they contacted somebody and didn't get a response, we obviously wouldn't be real happy about that," he said. "But we don't know what the details were of their contact."

As for the incident last weekend, Mason Police Chief Ron Ferrell said police arrived at the pool within one minute as life guards were administering CPR to 4-year-old Bobby Simpson.

Fire Chief John Moore said paramedics continued to attempt to revive Bobby while they traveled to Bethesda North Hospital. They arrived at Bethesda within 18 minutes of dispatch and Moore said while the boy never regained consciousness in the ambulance, he was starting to respond and breathe again. He was later air lifted to Children's Hospital in Cincinnati, where he died Sunday.

Mason Recreation Manager Steve Gayfield said the boy was about 10 to 12 feet from the pool's edge and the water depth is four feet. Gayfield said they are still reviewing what happened, but he believes one of the lifeguards spotted Simpson first.

City Manager Eric Hansen said there were 34 swimmers in the leisure pool where the incident occurred. Two lifeguards, ages 15 and 18, were in the chairs, another lifeguard was in the competitive pool and another was on break. Two more were clocked in but not in the area. These other guards were ages 16, 17 and 18. Hansen said they rotate the lifeguards regularly to keep them alert.

Mason's lifeguards are trained using the American Red Cross lifeguard training program.

The facility's policy is that children ages 3 and younger must be accompanied in the pool — within arm's reach — by someone 16 or older.

Contact this reporter at (513) 696-4525 or dcallahan@coxohio.com.

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